1. Field
The disclosed aspects relate generally to communications between and/or within devices and specifically to methods and systems for improving near field communication (NFC) connections through device positioning based on one or more sensory cues.
2. Background
Advances in technology have resulted in smaller and more powerful personal computing devices. For example, there currently exist a variety of portable personal computing devices, including wireless computing devices, such as portable wireless telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and paging devices that are each small, lightweight, and can be easily carried by users. More specifically, the portable wireless telephones, for example, further include cellular telephones that communicate voice and data packets over wireless networks. Many such cellular telephones are being manufactured with relatively large increases in computing capabilities, and as such, are becoming tantamount to small personal computers and hand-held PDAs. Further, such devices are being manufactured to enable communications using a variety of frequencies and applicable coverage areas, such as cellular communications, wireless local area network (WLAN) communications, near field communication (NFC), etc.
One feature of NFC is that a successful connection only be established within a comparatively small operating volume. In other words, an NFC enabled device and a remote NFC device need to be within close proximity of each other in order to successfully perform an NFC action. As used herein, an NFC action may include, but is not limited to, radio frequency (RF) discovery, NFC link establishment, data exchange, etc. Because of the comparatively small operating volume, a challenge arises in determining how to effectively indicate to a user where an optimal place is on a NFC device for performing an NFC action. Generally, to assure a robust connection, a user may align the antenna location of an NFC device with the remote NFC device. Where this location is indicated by a mark on the underside of the NFC device, the location is not be visible to the user when the NFC device is held in close proximity to the remote NFC device (e.g., a reader/writer, tag, peer device, etc.). Further, a NFC device may have a user interface substantially covering the front surface, so it is not possible to place a mark to indicate a location on the top surface. Also, even if a mark could be placed on the front surface of a device, for manufacturers, the need to choose a location for such a mark on the external casing would mean that different casings would be needed for different antenna sizes and/or locations. This would add cost, and/or limit the ability to optimize antenna design for a given NFC device configuration.
Thus, improved apparatus and methods for improving NFC device positioning for performing a NFC action based on one or more sensory cues may be desired.